The Morris Area/Chokio-Alberta Tigers boys swimming and diving jumped in the pool for their first official practice on Monday, Nov. 25.

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Numbers are slightly up from last year to this year, in the 14-15 range.

“A few young swimmers trying out, so we’re excited to see how they do,” head coach Anita Nelson said.

With only a handful of returning swimmers, Vaughn Dieter and Peter Erickson are named the captains this season.

“I don’t know about Peter since he finished second half of the school year [and season] in England, but Vaughn seems very excited,” Nelson said. “He made it to sections last year, didn’t make top sixteen, but I think that will be a good goal for him this year.”

Expectations are tough when you barely have enough players to fill a roster, but Nelson still expresses her excitement to see what the boys will do this season.

“It’s truly hard to say, I don’t have a ton of expectations for this season,” Nelson said. “I just want see what we do, have fun with it, and swim hard.”

“It’s very tough being a team of 14-15 because you go against teams of 20-25,” Nelson said. “It gets to be tough for the boys in that way, so it’s hard to expect a whole ton out of them.”

“I really hope this will be a good building season for us,” Nelson said. “We have five or six seventh graders in the pool, so showing a young group is going to be really fun.”

Since Perham pool is unable to be utilized for meets, the Tigers swim against Perham a lot during the season.

“Perham is probably the closest competition for us,” Nelson said. “Which is cool because we actually go against them quite a bit when we host triangular meets and such, so it’s fun.”

Morris Area/C-A will be traveling to Fergus Falls on Dec. 7 for their season opener. The Tigers will take the pool for their home opener against Perham at the Regional Fitness Center Dec. 12.